In her lawsuit, 'Desperate Housewives' creator Marc Cherry is described as someone who gets irritated when his authority is questioned and behaves rudely to other crew and actors.
- Apr 6, 2010
AceShowbiz - Nicollette Sheridan has let the cat out of the bag and asks for $20 million in compensation to her being attacked on the set of "Desperate Housewives". The actress whose character Edie Britt was killed off last year is suing the show's creator Marc Cherry for hitting her in the head and creating a hostile work environment.
In the lawsuit obtained by TMZ, Sheridan claimed Cherry was "behaving in an extremely abusive and aggressive manner." Once she questioned something in the script and Cherry took her aside and "forcefully hit her with his hand across her face and head". According to the lawsuit, Sheridan yelled back, "You just hit me in the head. That is not okay. THAT IS NOT OKAY!"
The suit was filed on Monday, April 5 in Los Angeles Superior Court. It said that in summer 2008, Sheridan had discussed privately with Cherry about "his negative demeanor toward her and to discuss whether he had a problem with her work." Cherry said there was no problem and apologized. However, he lashed out at her again in a "rude and degrading manner" on September 24, 2008 rehearsal where the hitting occurred.
Cherry later visited her trailer to beg for forgiveness but Sheridan opted to report this to higher authority aka ABC. This resulted in the termination of her contract which was informed to her in February 2009. Worse, ABC sided with Cherry in this decision to write off the character Edie Britt, a move which led in Sheridan "losing millions in future earnings". The actress earned around $250,000 per episode at that time.
"The decision to kill off Sheridan's character demonstrates that Cherry and ABC intended to and did retaliate against Sheridan for her complaints about Cherry," the lawsuit said, adding that "none of the female characters had ever before been killed off or written out of the show."
Sheridan also noted a supporting fact that Cherry was not rude only to her. She said in the lawsuit that Teri Hatcher who plays Susan in the show went above his head to ABC executives and Cherry told Sheridan, "I hope Teri Hatcher gets hit by a car and dies."
A rep for the show and Cherry declined to comment while Sheridan's rep was not immediately available for comment.
